Goodbye, Atlantic Ocean

On All Saints' Day, November 1st, 1755, the Portuguese capital Lisbon was destroyed by a massive  earthquake. Up to 100,000 people died and eighty-five percent of Lisbon's buildings were destroyed, including famous palaces and libraries.

Lisbon destroyed by earthquake and tsunami

Contemporary reports state that the earthquake lasted between three and a half and six minutes, causing fissures 15 feet wide to open in the city center.  Survivors rushed to the open space of the docks for safety and watched as the water receded, revealing a sea floor littered with lost cargo and shipwrecks. Approximately 40 minutes after the earthquake, a tsunami engulfed the harbor and downtown area, killing thousands.  In the areas unaffected by the tsunami, fire broke out, and flames raged for five days.

Dr João Duarte, a Portuguese scientist working in Australia, now says the earthquake was caused by an 'embryonic subduction zone' that may split the Eurasian tectonic plate and cause the Atlantic ocean to close.

Newly-appearing subduction zones are, according to Dr Duarte, to be expected as part of Earth's “super-continent cycle” that sees much of earth's land come together in very large continents. That cycle takes 300 million to 500 million years, and Dr Duarte said he thinks the appearance of the new subduction zone off Portugal shows that the process continues and that the Atlantic will one day become part of a new super-continent.

More information may be seen here:  http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/06/17/boffins_find_evidence_atlantic_ocean_has_started_closing/